Microsoft wants to 'doubledown' on Cortana to make it a true personal assistant

Microsoft has posted a new video interview with Cortana team Group Program Manager Marcus Ash. The video is primarily Ash going over the design philosophy behind Cortana, things like Cortana completing certain tasks for you, letting you keep your attention on other, more important parts of your day.

Ash also talked a bit about hopes for the future, such as giving Cortana more personality. As an example, when getting sports scores, if Cortana knows what team you root for, the tone of its report will reflect if your team won or not.

What do you think of the interview? Leave your thoughts with us down in the comments.

Reader comments

Microsoft wants to 'doubledown' on Cortana to make it a true personal assistant

I love Microsoft n xbox one have faith in them all we want it to do shit has to do never stop adding new thing to windows phone and cortana love it make her most real as they can like communication personality being smart funny n cool interesting things n just smart real n very exciting

Forget about meaningless 'Personality' things like predicting Sports scores, Tossing a Coin, and who's going to win Dancing with the Stars (WTF?!) and roll out the Jen Taylor version to English speaking countries first. Most of us in Western countries grow up with American tv/movies/music, so we're quite capable of understanding her.

It's still unbelieavable you have to change Phone regions just so you can access Quiet Hours and Inner Circles, which should be basic OS stuff.

Would be great too if it could do some real grunt work. I'd love to be able to "write scripts" by saying: Cortana, search "file name" for all cells in A1 containing "x1" and create a new spreadsheet for each of those rows." More parameters can be added and that would be awesome.

Maybe they should start by addressing an issue that makes Cortana unusable first. There is a huge number of users that are complaining about losing their microphone after the 8.1 update with no word of acknowledgment from Microsoft.

Cortana. Excellent. Amazing. What about being able to remove picture from contacts ? What about being able to make a song my ringtone without using a PC ? Where is the data switch on the notifications bar ? And many many more...from a big windows phone follower...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's really all about swift, error-free execution. Cortana will love it die by how good it is at being truly helpful. The prize is huge. It is MSFT 's BEST chance to move users from GOOGLE. In light of that, it could be MSFT 's most important new software/service.

I want to see more multiple statement integration. For example I can ask Cortana to play Pearl Jam and she will open the music app and play Pearl Jam. This doesn't happen with Pandora though. You can only ask to open Pandora. I would like to be able to say open Pandora and.play Pearl Jam station.

I would really prefer she simply DO more than simply sound better. Great down the line, but get the functionality first, then get cheeky. When I ask for sunset times, don't give me a Bing result list. Tell me the time.

They should add useful features like being able to set your desired departure time for work/home rather than have it guess. Or the ability to set your preferred news feeds instead of getting the crap from fox we do now. Adding personality to sportes scores serves no real purpose, real functionality is needed not gimmicks.

Instead of increasing its functionality, why not making it worldwide? I don't want to change my phone region to US in order to use Cortana, and change it back to Malaysia to install local supported apps.

Ash: "Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my boomstick! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?"

MS should not put Cortana on any non-MS platforms, for several reasons. First, it won't have the abilities that Cortana does on Windows since it will be just another app and not have OS level access. Second, it's one of the few advantages WP has going for it. I personally find it much better than Siri, and while not as robust as Google Now, it offers the personality and Siri-style interface that's more personable than Google Now.

I tried Lumia 730 as well as 830 but I didn't get the "hey Cortana feature working". Wish to see it on my 1020 and also some basic offline features like, play music, send text, calling a person, I don't think those commands need internet really. :)

For God's sake stop asking about denim. Microsoft hasn't even announced its availability yet. Besides if you are on the developer preview then all denim has are camera updates. And if your not on pfd then go shout on the lumia Facebook and Twitter pages. WC will know only after Microsoft reveals it.

The more people that use it the better the service will get. Cortana will have to become cross platfrom at some point. Once it goes to Windows 10 and Xbox One there will be no point in dening it to Android and iOS/Mac users.

@jamesdax3 I don't think that its mandatory that Cortana by default should go to iOS and Android after she debuts in Windows 10 and Xbox. There is a 1.5 Billion install PC base, and with the preclusion of licensing fees on devices under 9 inches, we already see a growing influx of new Windows tablets and hybrids. With Cortana's inclusion in ALL upgrades to/new purchases of Windows 10 devices, including the growing phone market, that creates quite a large a market fir the early years of Windows 10, and a MASSIVE market as upgrades and new Windows 10 devices, across ALL form factors and myriad implementations, IOT, car, wearables, tablet, PC, hybrids, phone. Cortana can thrive and be quite successful relegated only within Microsoft's ecosystem.
If she MUST cross over because Microsoft, right or wrong deems that's the direction they wish to go, I might feel a little more at ease if her transfer to other OS's is in a VERY restricted form, implemented via the Bing apps already on those platforms.
Consider this, Bing already allows users who log into the service a certain level of "personalization", (getting to know you).
If you log into the Bing page( iOs, Windows Phone or Android user) you get options to follow certain topics( interests). You can also log into facebook for more personalized searches.
If the Bing app on iOS/Android is revamped to allow for the delivering up of interests, localized suggestions for some Cortana-esque features without the whole she-bang that would bother me less. We have little left that's exclusively ours.
I also think there is great potential in how Cortana on Windows Phone and PC can work together. Keeping her exclusive to Windows Phone, gives that edge to being all in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Here's what I think CORTANA ON WINDOWS PHONE and PC WORKING TOGETHER could look like.http://jltechword.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/cortana-on-pc-and-windows-pho...

Couldn't you use the same argument for every single service from Microsoft though? Might as well give everything away. Most of us here are concerned about the future of Windows phone, although the name is now Windows Central. No matter how good Cortana gets by giving it to everyone, it's not in the least going to help WP grow.

Yeah i upgraded from the 928 to iphone 6 because Microsoft had no flag ship phone for fall like everyone else. I wanted the Galaxy Note Edge but a release date wasnt announced. Even though the 6 is great and a lot of doors have opened up thanks to pretty much everything supporting iPhone, i really miss WordFlow and especially Cortana. If a nice powerful flagship phone came out id get it eventually but with Cortana coming to iOS i just dont think thats happening